A common problem concerned with power tools of the above type is to minimize the dimensions of the gearing as well as the outer dimension of the tool for a certain level of torque output. In power nut runners, for instance, the motor speed is reduced in at least two stages such that in the last stage the rotation speed is quite low while the transferred torque is high. In this type of tool, it is also desirable to have a low gear ratio in the last stage, which means that the planet wheels in that stage have to have a small diameter. This means in turn that there is very little space left for the needle bearing supporting each planet wheel on the planet wheel carrier. Accordingly, the material thickness between the bases of the gear teeth and the outer race of the needle bearing will be too small, and the fatigue strain at the bases of the gear teeth will be too high to meet the demands of an acceptably long service life of the gearing.
One solution to that problem could be to make the planet wheels longer so as to distribute the torque related forces on the gear teeth over a longer distance. This will not work in practice, however, because an even gear teeth engagement and force distribution over a long gear wheel is impossible to obtain, because of torsional deflection of primarily the sun gear and the planet wheel carrier. The result would be that the tension level in the teeth will still be too high at the torque input side of the gears.
Another way to solve this problem could be to split the planet wheel bearing into two bearings located on opposite sides of the planet wheel. By this arrangement the torsional deflection of primarily the planet wheel carrier would misalign the gear teeth relative to the sun gear and the ring gear, which would result in high local gear teeth stresses on the gear teeth.